Day of Confession Read online

  Opening a drawer, he set a palm-sized tape player on the desk, then opened the envelope and slid the cassette into it. For a moment he hesitated, then deliberately he pressed the PLAY button. There was a dull whirring as the tape came to speed. Then he heard the voice, hushed but perfectly clear.

  “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May God, who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy.”

  Then came the other voice: “Amen.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” the other voice continued. “It has been many days since my last confession. These are my sins—”

  Abruptly Marsciano’s thumb pushed the STOP button and he sat there, unable to go on, to hear any more.

  A confession had been recorded without the knowledge of either the penitent or the priest. The penitent, the confessor, was himself. The priest, Father Daniel.

  Filled with horror and revulsion, pushed to the darkest edges of his soul by Palestrina, he had turned to the only place he could. Father Daniel was not only an honorable co-worker and as devoted a friend as he had had in his life, he was a. priest given to God, and whatever was said would be protected by the Seal of Confession and would go no farther than the confessional.

  Except that it had.

  Because Palestrina had recorded it. And he no doubt had had Farel implant electronic devices in other places, private or otherwise—any place Marsciano or the others might go.

  Increasingly paranoid, the secretariat was protecting himself on all fronts, playing the stirring military leader he had years earlier told Marsciano he was certain he was. He had been drunk, but in all seriousness and with great pride, he had boasted that from the day he was old enough to know such things, he believed he was the reincarnation of Alexander of Macedon, ancient conqueror of the Persian empire. It was how he had lived his life from then on, and why he had risen to become who he was and in the place he was. Whether anyone else believed it made no difference, because he did. And little by little Marsciano could see him taking on the mantle of a general at war.

  How quickly and brutally he had acted after hearing the recording! Marsciano had given his confession late Thursday night, and early Friday morning Father Daniel had left for Assisi, no doubt as horrified as Marsciano and seeking his own solace. There had never been a question in Marsciano’s mind who had reached out to stop Danny, blowing up the bus and killing how many innocents in the process. It was the same ruthless disregard for humanity as his stratagem for China, the same cold-blooded paranoia that made him distrust not only those around him but the Seal of Confession, and in that, the canon law of the Church.

  It was something Marsciano should have expected. Because, by then, he had seen the true horror of Palestrina unveiled. The specter of it frozen in his memory as if it had been stamped from steel.

  ON THE MORNING FOLLOWING the immense public funeral for the cardinal vicar of Rome, the secretariat had called the still deeply shaken remaining members of the cabal—himself; prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, Joseph Matadi; and director general of the Vatican Bank, Fabio Capizzi—to a conference at a private villa in Grottaferata, outside Rome, a retreat Palestrina often used for “introspective” gatherings and the place where he had first presented his “Chinese Protocol.”

  On arrival, they had been taken to a small, formal courtyard nestled among manicured foliage away from the main house where Palestrina waited at a wrought-iron table, sipping coffee and making entries into a laptop computer. Farel was with him, standing behind his chair like some iron-fisted majordomo. A third person was there as well—a quietly handsome man, not yet forty. Slim and of medium height, he had jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes and was dressed—Marsciano remembered—in a double-breasted navy blazer, white shirt, dark tie, and gray slacks.

  “You have not met Thomas Kind,” Palestrina said as they sat down, sweeping his hand as if he were introducing a new member of a private club.

  “He is helping coordinate our ‘situation’ in China.”

  Marsciano could still feel the rush of horror and disbelief and saw the same in the others as well—the sudden, involuntary inward twist of Capizzi’s tight, thin lips; the immediate and grave apprehension in the once humor-filled eyes of Joseph Matadi—as Thomas Kind stood up and politely greeted them by name, his eyes fixing on each as he did.

  “Buon giorno, Monsignor Capizzi.

  “—Cardinal Matadi.

  “—Cardinal Marsciano.”

  MARSCIANO HAD REMEMBERED seeing Kind there a year earlier in the company of a short middle-aged Chinese, but only at a distance, when he and Father Daniel had come for a business meeting with Pierre Weggen. At the time he’d had no idea who he was and hadn’t given it much thought, except for the China connection. But now, seeing him this close and being told who he was, and realizing who he was as he looked at you and said your name, was a horrifying experience.

  And Palestrina’s quiet delight in their not-well-concealed reactions told them, as clearly as if he had announced it, who murdered the cardinal vicar and at whose order. Their summons to the villa had been simply a warning that if any of them secretly harbored the late cardinal’s views, disagreed with Palestrina’s plan for China and had thoughts of going to the Holy Father or the College of Cardinals about it, they would have Thomas Kind to deal with. It was pure and terrifying Palestrina gall, a theatrical sideshow to his ever-increasing circus of horror. Moreover, it was a clear signal that his war to control China was about to begin.

  And afterward, as if it were possible to be more audacious, Palestrina had simply pushed a huge hand through his great white mane and dismissed them.

  MARSCIANO’S EYES CAME BACK to the dim light of his study and the tiny recorder on his desk. With his confession he had told Father Daniel of the assassination of Cardinal Parma and of his own complicity in Palestrina’s master plan for the expansion of the Church into China—one that would involve not only the surreptitious maneuvering of Vatican investments but, more horrifically, the deaths of untold numbers of innocent Chinese citizens.

  With his confession, and wholly unknowingly, he had condemned Father Daniel to death. The first time, God or perhaps fate had intervened. But once they knew for certain he was still alive, Thomas Kind would take up the hunt. And to escape someone like Kind would be all but undoable. Palestrina would not fail twice.

  46

  Pescara. Via Arapietra. Saturday, July 11, 7:10 A.M.

  THOMAS KIND SAT BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A rented white Lancia and waited for someone to open the door to number 1217, the private ambulance company across the street.

  Glancing in the mirror, he smoothed his hair, then looked back to the storefront. The shop opened at seven-thirty. Just because he was early, why should he expect anyone else to be, especially on a Saturday morning? So he would wait. Patience was everything.

  7:15

  A male jogger passed on the sidewalk in front of number 1217. Seventeen seconds later, a boy on a bicycle went by in the opposite direction. Then nothing.

  Patience.

  7:20

  Abruptly two policemen on motorcycles appeared in his rearview mirror. Thomas Kind did not flinch. They approached slowly and then passed. The door across the street remained closed.

  Leaning back against the leather seat, Thomas Kind thought about what he knew so far—that a late-model beige Iveco van with the Italian license plate number PE 343552 had left Hospital St. Cecilia at exactly ten-eighteen Thursday night. It had carried a male patient, a nun who was apparently a nurse as well, and two men thought to be male nurses.

  The information he had requested and received, finally, from Farel had shown that Hospital St. Cecilia was one of only eight hospitals in all of Italy that, in the last week, had admitted an anonymous patient. More specifically, it was the only hospital whose patient had been male and in his early to mid-thirties. And that patient had been discharged shortly after ten the evening before.

/>   Arriving just after noon yesterday, he had gone directly to St. Cecilia’s. A brief look around confirmed what he had suspected and prepared for; that the private hospital had in place a system of security cameras covering not only the hallways and public rooms but also the exits and entrances. It was, he hoped, as extensive as it appeared.

  Directed to the administrative offices, he produced a business card identifying him as a sales representative for a security systems company based in Milan and asked to see the hospital’s chief of security.

  The security chief was out, he was told, and not due back until eight that evening. And Thomas Kind had simply nodded and said he would return then.

  By eight-fifteen the two were chatting amiably in the security chief’s office. Turning the conversation to business, he asked whether, in light of the bombing of the Assisi bus and the assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome in what the government feared might be a new wave of terrorist attacks, the hospital had done anything to increase its security situation.

  Not to worry, he was told by the assured and surprisingly young security chief. Moments later the two men entered St. Cecilia’s security operations center and sat down at a bank of sixteen television monitors taking live feed from surveillance cameras throughout the building. One, in particular, caught Thomas Kind’s attention. The one he was looking for. The camera covering the ambulance dock.

  “Your cameras operate twenty-four hours a day, every day,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you keep videotape of everything?”

  “There.” The chief of security pointed to a narrow closet-like hallway where red recording lights of video recorders glowed in the dim light.

  “The tapes are kept for six months before they are erased and reused. I designed the system myself.”

  Thomas Kind could see the pride the man took in his accomplishment. It was something to be applauded and then exploited. And Thomas Kind did, saying how impressed he was with the setup, enthusiastically pulling his chair closer, asking for a demonstration of how the system’s video retrieval worked. Asking, for example, if the security chief could pull up a videotaped record of someone arriving or leaving by ambulance at a specific time on a particular day—say, oh, last night about ten.

  Only too happy to oblige, the security chief grinned and punched in a number on the master board. A video screen in front of them snapped on. A time/date code showed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and then a video of the ambulance dock at the hospital’s rear entrance came to life. The security chief fast-forwarded, then brought the tape back to speed as an ambulance arrived. The vehicle stopped, attendants got out, and a patient was taken from the ambulance and disappeared into the hospital. Clearly seen were the faces of the attendants as well as that of the patient. A moment later the attendants returned and the ambulance pulled away.

  “You have stop motion,” Kind said. “If there were a problem and investigators needed a license plate number—“

  “Watch,” the security chief said, punching REVERSE and bringing the ambulance back. Then letting it go forward again in stop motion to freeze and hold a frame on a clearly identifiable license plate number.

  “Perfect.” Kind smiled. “Could we see a little more?”

  The tape ran forward, and Kind, with his eye carefully on the running time code, engaged the security chief in conversation through the comings and goings of several more ambulances, until, at nine-fifty-nine, a unmarked beige Iveco van pulled in.

  “What is that, a delivery truck?” Kind asked, as he watched a heavy-set man step from behind the wheel and walk out of the camera’s view into the hospital.

  “Private ambulance.”

  “Where is the patient?”

  “He’s picking one up. Watch.” The tape fast-forwarded, then came back to speed as the man returned, this time accompanied by a woman who looked like a nursing nun, another man, who appeared to be a male nurse, and a patient on a gurney, heavily bandaged with two IVs hanging from a rack overhead. The heavy-set man opened the door. The patient was put inside. The nursing nun and male nurse got in with him. Then the door was closed and the heavy-set man got behind the wheel and drove off.

  “You can retrieve that license number, too, no doubt,” Kind said, stroking the security chief again.

  “Sure.” The security chief stopped the tape, then backed it up. Then forwarded in stop motion and froze. The license number was clearly visible—PE 343552. The time/date code in the upper corner—22:18/9 July.

  Kind smiled. “PE is a Pescara prefix. The ambulance company is local.”

  “Servizio Ambulanza Pescara.” The security chief’s pride showed again. “You see, we have everything under control.”

  Smiling in admiration, Thomas Kind pushed the chief’s pride button one more time and retrieved the name the anonymous patient had used—Michael Roark.

  THE SQUARE BOXED ad in the telephone book gave Thomas Kind the rest. Servizio Ambulanza Pescara was headquartered at 1217 Via Arapietra, directly across the street from where he waited now. The ad also listed the name of the company’s direttore responsabile, its owner, Ettore Caputo, and alongside showed his photograph. Beneath it were its business hours. Monday through Saturday. 7:30 A.M. to 7:30 P.M.

  Kind glanced at his watch.

  7:25

  Suddenly he looked up. A man had turned the corner across the street and was walking down the block. Thomas Kind watched him carefully, then smiled. Ettore Caputo was four and a half minutes early.

  47

  THE PHOTOGRAPH ON THE PASSPORT IN FRONT of him was Harry’s, showing him bearded, as he still was. The passport itself was worn, its stiff cardboard covers bent, softened as if it had been carried around for years. It had been issued by the U.S. Passport Agency, New York. The inside pages showed the entry stamps of British, French, and U.S. immigration authorities, but beyond that there was nothing to indicate the course of the traveler’s movements because few western European countries stamped passports anymore.

  The name beside his photograph was JONATHAN ARTHUR ROE—born 18/SEP/65—New York, U.S.A.

  On the table next to the passport was a District of Columbia driver’s license and a faculty membership card for Georgetown University. The driver’s license listed his residence as the Mulledy Building, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Both pieces carried his photograph.

  In fact, all three photos were different. With Harry wearing either one or the other of Eaton’s shirts or his sweater. None looked as if it could have been taken at the same place as another—the room in which he now stood—or at the same time, yesterday evening.

  “That’s the rest of it.” Adrianna Hall slid a letter-sized envelope across the coffee table in front of her. “There’s cash there, too. Two million lire, about twelve hundred dollars. We can get more if you need it. But Eaton said to warn you—priests do not have money, so don’t spend it like you do.”

  Harry looked at her, then opened the envelope and took out its contents—the two million in Italian lire, in fifty-thousand lire notes, and the lone sheet of paper with its three neatly typed, single-spaced paragraphs.

  “It tells you who you are, where you work, what you do, all of it,” Adrianna said. “Or enough for you to fake your way through if someone asks. The instructions are to memorize what’s there, then destroy it.”

  Harry Addison was now Father Jonathan Arthur Roe, a Jesuit priest and associate professor of Law at Georgetown University. He lived in a Jesuit residence on the campus and had taught there since 1994. He had grown up an only child in Ithaca, New York. Both his parents were deceased. The rest gave his background: the schools he had attended, when and where he had joined the seminary, a physical description of Georgetown University and its environs, the Georgetown section of Washington, down to the detail that he could see the Potomac River from his bedroom, but only in fall and winter when the leaves were off the trees.

  And then there was the last, and he looked up
at Adrianna. “It seems as a Jesuit, I’ve taken a vow of poverty.”

  “Probably why he didn’t give you a credit card…”

  “Probably.”

  Harry turned and walked across the room. Eaton had promised and delivered, giving him everything he needed. All Harry had to do was the rest.

  “It’s kind of like Charades, isn’t it?” He turned back. “You totally become someone else…”

  “You don’t have much choice.”

  Harry studied her. Here was a woman, like many, one he’d slept with but hardly knew. And except for that one moment in the dark when he’d sensed that some part of her feared her own mortality and was genuinely afraid—not so much to die as to no longer live—he realized he almost knew her better from seeing her on television than he did standing in a room with her.

  “You’re how old, Adrianna? Thirty-four?”

  “I’m thirty-seven.”

  “All right, thirty-seven. If you could be someone else,” he asked seriously, “who would you choose?”

  “I never thought about it…”

  “Take a stab at it, go on. Who?”

  Suddenly she crossed her arms in front of her. “I wouldn’t be anyone else. I like who I am and what I do. And I’ve worked like hell to get there.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “A mother? A wife?”

  “Are you kidding?” Her half laugh was both droll and defensive, as if he’d touched some nerve she didn’t like touched.

  He pushed her. Maybe more than he should have and unfairly, but for some reason he wanted to see more of who she was.